Climbing Out of the Winter Blues

ELEV8 and Petoskey Field House talk winter climbing

By Ren Brabenec | Dec. 20, 2025

Sixteen years ago, Kevin Vlach was fresh out of college at the University of Michigan and living abroad in Spain. That was when he first heard the siren song of climbing.

“I’d heard about these locals who would go down into these huge culverts below highway overpasses and climb up the sides. I tried it once and was hooked.”

Vlach moved back to the States, lived in Colorado for a few years, and became even more obsessed with rock climbing, eventually joining a volunteer mountain search-and-rescue team.

“After my wife and I had our first kid, we decided to move back to TC to be closer to family,” Vlach says. “Then we decided to open a climbing gym, but that posed challenges, because climbing gyms are typically centered in old industrial districts where big warehouses have high, open ceilings. Not a lot of that in Traverse City, especially not in locations that folks would find it easy to get to.”

So Vlach and his business partner, Nick Olson, bought a vacant lot off of Eighth Street and began building their gym from the ground up. Just as they were preparing to break ground, the COVID-19 pandemic hit, adding additional challenges to an already stressful venture.

“The community showed up for us,” Vlach says. “With their help, we pulled through and opened our doors in 2021.”

Centered in Community

What stands out most about ELEV8 isn’t its unique, modern, completely custom climbing gym, or the thought and foresight put into every installation and amenity. For Vlach and the people who attend the gym, it’s the focus on community.

Vlach began ticking off the various programs ELEV8 puts on throughout the year and the different community activities the gym is engaged in. It takes him at least a minute to list them all, and he insists he’s forgetting a few.

“Family club night, homeschool climbing hours, youth climbing clubs both recreational and competitive, classes, parties, competitions, 8th Street Day, blacklight climbing, headlamp climbing, movie nights, conferences, seminars, Queer Night, potlucks, high school grad nights, recess sessions for grade school kids—the list goes on,” Vlach says.

Because ELEV8’s co-founders founded the gym as a community gathering place first and foremost, they’ve also put a lot of work into making climbing accessible to all.

“Climbing, like most sports, was traditionally an upper-middle class, white male-dominated sport,” Vlach says. “We aim to change the narrative by creating a place for everyone. We launched a program called ‘ELEV8 For All,’ which is an honor-system scholarship program that provides subsidized memberships to those who cannot cover the full cost of a climbing membership. We feel our standard fees are fair and reflect the value one gets from a membership, but we also never want cost to be an obstacle to those who want to join our community and start climbing.”

Goals for 2026

When we asked Vlach about his plans for 2026, he grins as if he’s hiding a secret. “Well, we haven’t made it public yet, but let’s manifest it into existence right now by talking about it!” he says. “In 2026, we’re hoping to take the fun outdoors and install exterior climbing elements onto our facility!”

Vlach waxes poetic about the joy of outdoor climbing, something people in the Traverse City area typically have to drive at least three hours to experience.

“How great would it be to get some fresh air and a light breeze right here in TC while you’re 40 feet up on an outdoor climbing wall?” Vlach says. “We’re very excited to bring that climbing opportunity here.”

Speaking of climbing opportunities, we asked Vlach for his two cents on how folks should get started in rock climbing. “Come in and get our basic safety orientation and some brief information on how to use the equipment,” he says. “But then just get on the wall and see if it grabs you.”

Setting a New Route

When that outdoor wall arrives, it will need some expert guides. Luckily, ELEV8 has them.

“Route setting is one of the best parts of climbing, because you get to create the problem that climbers then have to solve.”

So says Jess Kubo, a manager and route setter at ELEV8. She’s been climbing for almost 20 years. Kubo joined ELEV8 before the business even opened, and now she wears every hat imaginable, including coaching the gym’s competitive youth climbing team.

To Kubo, route setting is an art because you must approach creating a new climbing route with an open mind and a playful perspective.

“People ask, ‘Do you have binders full of routes that you rotate through?’” Kubo says with a chuckle. “‘Nope,’ we reply. All of our routes are self-created and self-directed. It takes imagination and inspiration to create a new route, and every route is examined by at least three employees before being made available to the public.”

ELEV8 creates new routes twice per week, ensuring members can always look forward to something new. Kubo also teaches lessons that emphasize safety, technique, and mobility exercises to improve core strength, grip, hip flexibility, and leg strength.

From the outside looking in, even the easiest routes might look challenging, but Kubo assures us that rock climbing is not as intimidating as it seems.

“People can have the experience they want to have,” she says. “There’s an entry point for everyone.”

Staying Active This Winter

For Kyle Lieberman, co-founder of Petoskey Field House, winters in Michigan pose challenges to athletic performance, putting young athletes at a disadvantage compared to those in warmer climates who can train year-round.

The solution? Bring outdoor sports indoors.

“Petoskey Field House is an indoor sports and activity center for people of all ages to come in, train, stay active, and engage with other community members,” Lieberman says, adding that the Field House’s primary demographic is children and school-age athletes, but that they also have an adult fitness center.

Lieberman and his co-founders purchased the property in January of 2020 and, like the folks at ELEV8, faced pandemic-related hurdles during construction and opening. But that didn’t stop them from building an activity center that is now home to one of the premier travel soccer clubs in Michigan.

“We wanted to maximize the space and that included going vertical,” Lieberman says when we asked about the rock climbing portion of Field House. “We did outreach into the community to find out what the needs were. Our goal with the Field House has always been to host activities families couldn’t find locally, and rock climbing was one.”

The Field House has three climbing walls with self-belay systems. “It’s introduced a lot of people in northwest Michigan to the joy of climbing,” Lieberman says.

This winter, Field House-goers can join the Northern Michigan Elite Fitness program, which meets on Mondays and Wednesdays. It’s an opportunity for kids ages 8-18 to work on their strength, speed, agility, and endurance.

“It’s a way for young athletes to improve on their basic athletic competence,” Lieberman says in closing, adding that interested families can sign up for the winter programming at petoskeyfieldhouse.com.

Photo by Josh Hartman